Abstract:To better understand grazing effects on sandy grassland in semiarid area, a five-years grazing experiment was carried out in Horqin Sandy Land, Inner Mongolia. Results showed that vegetation was seriously degraded by continued over-grazing(OG). The degraded process started from rapid decrease in vegetation coverage and height and aboveground standing biomass when most parts of stems and leaves were grazed. The vegetation coverage, height and aboveground standing biomass in OG were 82.1%, 94% and 97.9% lower...